The Hot Sellers of NYCC 2012

The New York Comic Con isn’t all about book announcements, parties, sketches and cosplay. Believe it or not, a huge chunk of the show is dedicated to the acquisition of cash. For every person who complains about conventions not being about comics, I say that you have not hung around the retailers section of the floor. I was able to talk with various tables about what books had been selling well and I learned a few surprises and had some other assumptions firmly cemented.

Warp 9 Comics had a great con, moving 100 copies of Batman #13 at $10.00 a pop, selling a NYCC Exclusive Batman #13 Variant for $60.00, and had a Snyder signed version of said variant that they were hoping to get $80.00 for. Walking Dead back issues were hot, blank Uncanny Avengers variants, Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe #1 was let go at $30, Happy #1 were hot sellers, along with AvX, Before Watchmen, New 52 titles, and Mark Millar books. Also being asked about was Iron Man #55, featuring the first appearance of Thanos. It hadn’t even occurred to me that this might be a thing since the movie, but Warp 9 wasn’t the only table to report an increase of interest in Thanos related books.

Yes. Believe it or not but your copies of The Infinity Gauntlet might finally be worth something.

New World Manga told us that they had a ton of luck with Saga, Deadpool and AvX issues, but Walking Dead wasn’t selling like they hoped.

Collector’s Kingdom however said that copies of The Walking Dead were just “printing money”. They also had a lot of luck with AvX, New 52, Uncanny Avengers and the new Batman: Death of the Family series.

The Encounter had a lot of luck with DC Archives, Marvel Essentials & Omnibuses, Avenging Spidey, Revival, and Uncanny Avengers.

Comics & Gaming (Booth 203) started the show with five long boxes of variants and when I talked to them on Sunday were down to a box and a half. They also had luck with AvX, Walking Dead, Before Watchmen and New 52.

JC’s Comics sold a lot of Walking Dead Chromium Covers, Batman #13, AvX, and apparently went through 300 copies of Uncanny Avengers. Also one of the employees told me that he discovered a swastika someone had made on the wall of a bathroom stall…in poop. Still waiting on that picture Paul.

Zapp Comics had a good show with Manhattan Projects, Saga, Batman #13, The Walking Dead and were happy to call another table “Assholes” for selling a copy of Saga #1 for $80.00. I was happy to talk to them.

[UPDATE: We have been asked to add “The comments in the piece were not made by the Zapp Comics owner, we have a policy of not commenting on other retailers’ practices.”]

Comic X-Plosion went through a lot of AvX, Saga, Batman, The Walking Dead, Before Watchmen, Uncanny Avengers, Thief of Thieves, while copies of Deadpool were just going “alright”.

Stormcrow Comics sold a Golden Record Spiderman #1, CGC rated at 9.1 for $850, and had good luck with New Mutants #98, Deadpool, they sold out of AvX, did really well with Batgirl #13 and Batman #13, as well as Iron Man #55.

So undoubtedly, this year the big books to buy were AvX, but the recent Batman issues were a huge draw as well. The Walking Dead either did extremely well or not at all and it seems like that was the case for Deadpool books too. Image had a great show from the retailers perspective as at least one Image book (usually Saga) was listed as a top seller at every table I visited. Back issues connected with movies were hot as they always are. I didn’t hear any complaints from the dealers, which means that a lot of comics fans got what they were looking for at this year’s New York Comic Con.